U.S. cloud providers find gag orders hard to swallow

by Fred Donovan

Ever since former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden began leaking documents about U.S. government surveillance programs in 2013, U.S. high-tech companies have been feeling the heat from their customers. The willingness of U.S. companies to comply with government demands for customer data prior to Snowden’s disclosures caused customers, particularly in Europe, to rethink their relationships with those companies. U.S. cloud providers, in particular, experienced a backlash from European customers, prompting an initial drop off in European business for these firms.